Guess Who?

I’m fighting back against the screens that are coming between the boys and I.

I’m not proposing an outright ban. By God I’ve not spent months justifying their educational value only to do away with them altogether, but whenever a screen gets switched on I’m instantly switched off.

They shall remain a wanton distraction for when I need Luca to stay awake whilst I make dinner, or when I need half an hours peace on the sofa to think about what I could be doing were I not sat on the sofa thinking about what I could be doing.

I also don’t see why Luca should get to kill an hour on Pikmin when at his age I had to sit through Pebble Mill, but that’s a bitterness I should probably keep to myself.

And besides, I’d quite like my phone back. If I’ve learnt anything as a parent it’s that you should never have better games on your phone than your other half does. Annoyingly it was Janet who taught me that.

I am however standing by my assertion that the Wii U compliments their schooling.

Sonny asked me recently what monochromatic meant. Obviously I had to grapple my phone off Luca in order to google an answer but still, I’m guessing this is something that wouldn’t otherwise have been covered in the early years curriculum.

And this led to a further lesson when he declared,

“I’m going to dead this Monochromatic Pinchipede!”

“Kill Sonny. You don’t dead something, you kill it!”

OK, so I’m correcting his grammar rather than questioning his murderous intent but it’s a lesson all the same.

Anyway where was I, ah the fight back.

So how am I fighting back you ask (or not, but for the purpose of this post I’ll pretend you are).

Board games. BOOM!

I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of this before. They can both count the dots on a dice, and if I’ve taught them anything it’s that great pleasure can be found in being a bad winner, especially when your brother is an equably bad loser.

It got of to a shaky start thanks to the cheap 3D Snakes and Ladders I bought from Asda. The balls were lost and the ladders broken within the first morning, but before I’d lost their enthusiasm altogether I came back with a classic and unadulterated 2D board.

I generally come last due to Sonny’s knack of throwing a fourteen with a single dice, and Luca’s ability to climb snakes, but the main thing is we’re all sat on the floor playing together.

The boys thought they’d seen all there was to a dice game but then I blew their tiny little minds with … Frustration. Pop up dice. I know, inspired! I challenge anyone to resist the lure of a pop up dice.

I was on a roll, pardon the pun, and dare I say it maybe a little cocky. But then why not, I was about to hit them with the game to end all games.

I’d been killing time in a charity shop when there on the shelf, amongst broken jigsaw and torn paperbacks, and for the paltry sum of £1, I saw Guess Who.

This wasn’t your cheap imitation either. This was no Who’s Who, or Who’s That, or Eh What? This was an original MB Games Guess Who. With Herman, Bernard, and Sarah et al.

Now I’ve had issues with MB Games in the past. It wasn’t that long ago I discovered the company wasn’t named after my initials as my mum had told me, nor was I a majority shareholder.

Luckily I found this out before staging a coup at the annual shareholders meeting. Lets face it, I can’t be the only MB to have been fed these lies. I reckon I would’ve mustered up enough MB’s to topple a small African country let alone the poxy board of a company that by rights was ours anyway.

If I find out the tractors emblazoned with MB on their side that I saw in the fields at the bottom of our garden aren’t mine either then I genuinely don’t have a pension pot to piss in!

Anyway, I brought it home with much excitement, explaining the rules to Luca as we walked, nigh skipped along the road.

….. wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped. You see it’s 6+ for a reason. Here’s a list of Luca’s better questions …

“Does he like broccoli?”

“Does she go to my Nursery?”

“Is he nice?”

“Is it Mummy?”

So we’re back to the dice. For now. I’m getting a little frustrated with losing to their questionable tactics but I don’t begrudge them their minor victories, not least because I know what’s to come, and I’m quietly confident I’ll whoop them at the next game I have in mind. Scrabble!

Comments 6

We introduced Snakes & Ladders to my then 2 year-old old. She loved it, but only the “throwing of the dice” part & we had to explain countless times not to throw it too high or too hard. Oh & she loved winning too!

Ah, Guess who… Lovely game and when the daddy is colorblind nearly impossible to play. We have a Cars Guess Who and the little man rock at that. pairs is our game of choice and there’s no way neither the daddy or I can beat the diglots… Maybe the daddy should go back to wearing cropped tops as the little man believes he do….

Ah, Pairs. I also lose at this often, my memory is not as good as it once was, but also due to the many distractions from his brother while we’re playing! P.S. I love the diglots crop top drawing, brilliant!

I can’t wait til the daughter’s old enough to play Guess Who, as soon as she got the concept I imagine her answers would rival Luca’s for serious LOL value! For now, jigsaw puzzles and colouring-in are the best distractions from TV.